Tuesday, January 28, 2014

The SelfishGiant
opens to a serene Arcadian scene: horses in a field at twilight, shrouded
in mist, munching grass.For a moment,
we’re lulled by the mood of an idyll.Then, crash!A cacophony of
screaming, thrashing, almost-too-close shot of fists and feet pounding on the
underside of a bed; an out-of-control boy jolts us alert.

This is a strong,
well-executed film of abandonment, exploitation, friendship and loss.Sounds and visualsplay a dramatic role in Clio Barnard’s heart-breaking
film. The cinematography, by Mike Eley, is powerful and brilliant. Throughout,
a series of still shots emphasize a triptych of crucial elements: black lines
of electrical power plants etched on colorful sunsets belie a savage lethality;
fog-shrouded nuclear reactors have great explosive potential; and those horses
show unexpected tenderness in a harsh environment.Each of these repeated scenes offers us
possibilities of the film’s development, which are both ominous and hopeful.

The Selfish Giant shows bald truths of a contemporary, lower-class
substrata of life in Northern England.I
found it brutal to watch.It is,
however, brutality well-placed, on the shoulders of characters and a society in
which ugly selfishness is rife.

Arbor (Conner
Chapman), of the fist-pounding scene, and his best friend, Swifty, are
complicated 13-year-old boys whose bond is the core and the emotional weight of
the story.They are lost, victims of the
decay around them, deeply devoted to each other. They’re desperate to find a foothold in a
world that offers them literally nothing. Wincing and hopeful, we observe their
process and are let into their heads.

At the outset, in
darkness, the boys secretly watch thieves gather precious electrical wire, and
stealthily out-wit them, taking their haul.Goods in hand, they bang on the door of Kitten, the corrupt scrap metal
dealer (Sean Gilder), anxious to sell.Kitten is a scary figure.He
seethes while he buys. His every move seems tied to exploitation.The boys are willing.In this world, exploiting the exploiter is
fair game.

Arbor is
hyperactively unstable, unpredictably violent, and paradoxically tender towards
his mother whose only parental acumen seems to be neglect.He is puny, a bully who is bullied, and he is
in constant motion.Chapman’s performance
is amazing!When we watch his lean,
young face twist into a sly smile, and then swiftly contort into wildness, we
are witnessing a mature performance.And
this is his first screen role!

By contrast, Swifty
(Shaun Thomas, in an excellent debut performance), is the gentle member of the
pair, but an equal accomplice in generating trouble.He’s pudgy, sweet-natured, loyal and has a
special kinship with horses. It is this
gift that really sets him apart from the urchin Arbor, and makes him
particularly valuable to Kitten who needs a steady hand to race his horse, yet
another of his illegal activities.

After their first
encounter, the boys rent horse and cart from Kitten and scour the city for
scrap.Filth, beautifully presented,
leaves us feeling queasy and unsettled.

The boys are good
at the scrap game and have time for it. Arbor is a truant, kicked out of school
and, in an effort to help Swifty find his power, gets Swifty expelled, too.They steal and sell “scrap” with increasing
boldness.The plodding horse takes them
to the streets, home to dysfunction, and back to the treacherous Kitten for
their cash.

Needy for
recognition, the boys each present their earnings to their respective mothers,
like young cats presenting the feathers and guts of their recent conquests.The mothers are wary: Arbor’s scorns him,
Swifty’s whimpers that she wants better for her son, and takes the cash.Siobhan Finneran (taking a break as the evil
O’Brien of Downton Abbey) plays Mrs.
Swift.Her character reminds us that
kindness and love can co-exist with despair, if not transcend it.It’s a small role but a big performance with
deep heart that lifts us out of total misery.

Through a palette
of greys, Barnard takes us deeper and deeper into the menacing and depressed
aspects of this culture.We watch scrap-hunters
maneuver for position, see live electrical wires left dangling, and angry men
seeking dominance through a terrifying, violent horse race on the street.

Arbor absorbs the
nastiness of these relentless surroundings. He becomes greedy and turns his
hurt on his friend when Swifty is preferred by Kitten.He ratchets up his escapades, steals from
Kitten, and toys with the horses that Swifty loves unconditionally.

The action is slow
yet this film keeps our attention, releasing a tension that builds and
builds.When the climax arrives sharply
and painfully, it’s heart-stopping.There is supreme tragedy, manufactured by Kitten and wrought by the
bleakness of this society.

When the credits
rolled, I was surprised to see that The
Selfish Giant was based on an Oscar Wilde story (one I have not read).While it is impossible for me to compare this
film with the Wilde story, I know that Wilde was brilliant at revealing human
flaws, first representing them as benign and ultimately exposing their highly dangerous
potential.Barnard does the same.The last few scenes allow Arbor the guttural,
and also silent, bellows of the bereaved and internally tortured.Then the screen cuts to a protracted
black.Yes.

Monday, January 27, 2014

Director Anna Justice has
created an intensely gripping and deeply emotional film based on actual events.

Set amidst the horrors of
a Nazi concentration camp in Poland, the story of two lovers, Hannah
Silberstein (Alice Dwyer), a young Jewish woman, and Tomasz Limanowski (Mateusz
Damieki) unfolds.

With the painstakingly
secret collaboration of a few of his fellow prisoners, Tomasz has prepared his
escape to carry precious photo negatives to the Polish resistance, to reveal to
the world what is transpiring in the camp.

When his moment comes, he
cannot bear to leave Hannah behind. Together they flee for their lives with the
Wermacht and their dogs at their heels, bringing the viewer with them every
terrifying step of the way.

They eventually manage to
reach the safety of Tomasz’s mother Stefania’s (Susanne Lothar) estate, only to
find the main house and grounds occupied by Nazi soldiers and Stefania forced
to live in a tiny cottage on the estate. Their relief is again shattered by
Stefania’s vicious expression of her own anti-semitism when she is confronted
with the fact that her son loves a Jew.

Despite the dangerous
situation, Tomasz is forced to leave his beloved Hannah with his mother while
he fulfills his dangerous mission.Expected to return for her in a few days, he does not show. His only
friend on the estate, the loyal stable man, Janusz (Miroslaw Zbrojewicz), keeps
his promise to get Hannah away to Tomasz’s sister Magdalena’s (Joanna Kulia)
rural home where Tomasz is certain she will be secure.

Hannah and Magdalena bond,
waiting for their men to return. While time passes ever tensely for fear of
being discovered, Hannah waits and hopes. Magdalena’s husband eventually
arrives, expecting Tomasz to have already reached the house. Eventually,
Stefania arrives, Russian soldiers having driven the Nazis out and taken over
her estate. None of them believe it is possible that Tomasz could still be
alive, no one but Hannah.

After yet another narrow
escape, this time from the brutal Russians who drag Magdalena and her husband
away, Hannah and Stefania are left alone in the house.It is winter. Hannah leaves a note for Tomasz
and, not knowing where else to go, attempts to make her way to her former home
in Berlin, still cherishing his worn photograph.Exhausted and collapsed on a snowy road, she
is picked up by a Red Cross bus. She is rescued and survives.

With tragic irony, Tomasz then
arrives at the house, searching for Hannah. Stefania cruelly tells him that
Hannah is dead.

The film alternates from
that past to Hannah’s life 30 years later, married and living with her family
in Brooklyn, NY. We learn that she had
tried desperately, unsuccessfully, to locate Tomasz after the war.

One day, on a routine
errand, Hannah overhears a TV interview and suddenly thinks she recognizes
Tomasz’s voice. This electrifying shock rekindles her deeply private, obsessive
quest to find him. She can think of nothing else. The years vanish as she is
immediately transported to her past, haunted by visions of her beloved Tomasz. She
refuses to share her turmoil with her husband, causing a crisis in her marriage,
which sets in motion the conclusion of the film.

Remembrance is beautifully directed and acted by all. Anna Justice welds the
viewer to her characters. We feel their suffering, pain and hope. We are riveted
to them. We feel the shock of realization that they could’ve been together all
of these years; their stabbing regret that now it may be simply and cruelly too
late. Their time has passed. The impact is total.

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Meet
Joe Lampton. Age: twenty-five. Appearance: tall, clean cut, fine looking young
man, eyes lit with fire. Attitude: angry. Ambition: to rise from his working
class back-ground, to reach the top. His plan: marry the daughter of the wealthiest
industrialist in Warmely, England. His price: his soul. The angry young men of
England are intelligent young men who fought a war and returned home to get
some education. As they went into the world they found a class society with
high fences blocking their ambitions. Then they shouted “down with the fences.”
Not down with the classes, but, down with the fences. Their clamor arose not
from indignation over social injustice but from envy. They wanted a share.
Those who made it had to pay, and this film is about the price. It is to the
point, honest, human. It slams a shovel down into the earth of life and spreads
it out unsifted for all to see.This is
not only England—it is America too. What price success!

Joe
Lampton (Laurence Harvey) succeeds. Before he does, he takes up with another
man’s unhappy wife (Simone Signoret). She is an earthy, sincere woman whose
strength and ingrained nobility cause Joe, against his will and contrary to his
plan, to fall in love with her. Joe is like a boy. His mistress, ten years
older than he, is like a mother. The two fulfill their hungers through each
other. Representing control and maturity, she protects him from himself. Giving
her the youth she missed, he represents the unfettered, the irresponsible, the
boy she would have married if she had the chance many years ago.

Their
love is doomed. In his quest for the higher reaches, Joe causes the rich
industrialist’s daughter (Heather Sears) to become pregnant. As planned, the
upper class must open the gate to him and he steps through, forsaking his
mistress. She destroys herself. Joe Lampton gets to the top, but he will never
be able to let himself forget how.

The
film is done with consummate brilliance. Yet, listening to the spoken lines by
themselves, one realizes how ordinary they are. Even the plot consists of
events that are common to scores of other films. Why then is this one exceptional?
There are two reasons: one is that the actors perform their roles to
perfection. The other is that the camera, being uniquely adept at building
various moods, feelings and impressions, cleverly bolsters the action.

As paint
is the medium of the artist, the camera is the medium of the movie-maker. It
should do the primary work in a film. It can work through angles, or closeups,
or a thousand other simple devices of which we are unaware. When Joe walks out
on his mistress, he opens then closes a door. A closed door suggests an ending
as well as an exit. But here the camera does not simply show a door closing; it
shows a knob and a lock slamming tight in one effective, quick cut closeup.

The
young wealthy girl has just given herself to Joe. She loves him, feels as one
with him. But Joe is preoccupied with his love for and betrayal of his
mistress. The young girl wishes to talk, but Joe insists on leaving. Although
he is triumphant he is disgusted with his triumph. The camera remains implanted
on the two, at one angle, as they rise and she takes his arm and they walk away
as the sound of her bubbling joy and his silence fade slowly to only an
incomprehensible, distant girlish tinkle. By simply standing still, focussing relentlessly
on its subject, the camera produces a dramatic effect—the contrast of
hopelessness and a girl’s futile joy.

When
you view a film such as this, you will readily agree that the motion picture
has come of age. What a pity that more film-makers don’t realize it.Directed by Jack ClaytonBased on the novel by John BraineScreenplay by Neil Paterson and Mordecai RichlerReviewed by Hugh on Thursday, 6/18/1959

Monday, January 13, 2014

This
movie exudes pure delight as its three main characters, likeable, loyal and
decent committed criminals, take us on a wild ride, gradually revealing their
pasts and their deep regard for each other. Their antics will shock you and make you laugh
out loud at the same time. They proceed casually, as if every outrageous gambit
is just another perfectly normal activity.

Doc (Christopher
Walken) greets his old buddy Val (Al Pacino) at the prison gate upon his release after
more than two decades. Now, while Doc is quietly reserved and
lives a simple, albeit lonely, life in his small apartment, Val is a wild
man. Since he’s been celibate and generally deprived of emotional warmth and the pleasures of humanity for a very long time, he has pent up demand for just about everything. His ravenous appetites, not the least of which is for hot sex, leads
him, with Doc calmly at his side through thick and thin, through a series of fantastic
escapades. However, Doc has a secret, overriding interest, indeed a mission, that is best discovered by the moviegoer.

Soon we
learn there is a triumvirate when they locate their ailing, near death buddy, Hirsch (Alan Arkin), who readily bolts from his nursing home confinement to join them in
one more adventure. Hirsch amazes as he reverts to his youthful self behind the
wheel of a stolen car, fearlessly leading a chase with moves that would put a
NASCAR driver to shame.

Stand Up Guys is a feel
good romp, not only because these guys do things that most of us wouldn’t have
the guts to do, and get away with it, but because they are on the right side of
our humanity.

Mumbai.Vibrant, loud, urgently throbbing and
chaotic, it is the colorful public face of India. With The Lunchbox, Ritesh Batras, in his astonishingly accomplished (masterful?)
and tender first feature, creates a powerful juxtaposition to a sprawling urban
Indian location by showing us the intimacies of life in India.He gives us a story that could be trite, but
isn’t.It’s delicate and delicious, like
the food that plays such a central role. Batras weaves together human experiences that
aren’t bound by culture:loss, longing,
burgeoning love, hope, and the shattering self-consciousness of aging.You will see yourself here.

Every day in Mumbai, the legendary dabbawalas
deliver millions of lunchboxes to their hungry patrons – without error.It’s a beautiful sight, these
brightly-colored fabric containers riding on the backs of scooters.The green-striped sack is our focal point,
landing, mistakenly, on the desk of Saajan Fernandes.

Curiosity and surprise! As he looks
at the lunchbox, we sense that it’s an effort for Saajan to crack these
expressions from a face that’s dried and solid like a footprint in
concrete.And thus the story begins . .
.

Irrfan Khan (known to American
audiences for his roles in Life of Pi,
Slumdog Millionare, The Namesake) is Saajan Fernandes.With his expressive, hooded eyes, Khan
introduces us to a man who seems uninvolved, perhaps mean-spirited. He’s become
deadened by the sameness of his routine, the unimaginative world of his career
as an accountant, the death of his wife, middle-age, and life’s cruelties.Spare of words, it’s a spell-binding, rich
performance.

Nimrat Kaur, a newcomer to the screen,
plays Ila.She shimmers in the light of
the camera as a young mother who yearns to rekindle her husband’s lapsed
affections through her luscious culinary creations.The
early morning crush in Mumbai looks like every-household:rush around, get the kid out the door and
onto the bus, sort laundry.Ila sweats
before the stove.She yells to “Auntie” in
the apartment above, who yells back with tidbits of knowledge about just the
right pinch of saffron (or such) to generate amour.It’s a lovely light touch, using the exotic
flavors and colors that inhabit and move the story.The doorbell rings, dabbawala grabs the sack
filled with a tower of tins, and off it goes.

Of course the destination of the
lunchbox portends the destiny of the characters that touch it.Ila’s every movement is necessary, contrasted
expertly with the non-movement of her distracted husband.Daily the lunchbox returns, lunch devoured,
tin wiped clean.Quickly she gets
it:not my husband.Surprise and curiosity are hers now, passing
hands, binding Ila and Saajan.She sends
him a note, hidden in the folds of her naan.

The exchange of notes, via lunchbox
transport, is the hot chili that spices the story.Saajan softens, becomes uncharacteristically revealing;
Ila is direct and strong, also intimate.Through written revelations to an unknown man, Ila breaks through the
iconic social norm of subservient wife, supplicant and second-class daughter
(to her traditional mother she will never fill the important shoes of her
deceased brother) and forms a self with needs.Saajan, we imagine, rejoins a sentimental and self-reflective self who
may have existed at an earlier time.He
sheds his visage of middle-age, loses years and adds hope, intention,
bounce.

Caring, or the bud of love, form
between these two sad characters, who know nothing more about each other than
their carefully selected words and the food that one creates and the other
loves. Each time the lunch sack is
placed on Saajan’s desk, and we see him unzip the cover and rapturously smell
the contents, we’re at the ends of our seats.What has Ila written today?

We want these two to be happy – a
great testimony to how Batras has captured their simple, private glances and
made the characters full and real.At
one point we watch Ila gently place a sheet of naan on a burner, and it expands
like a blowfish.We want them each to be
reborn in this way.Intensity builds
until Ila suggests that they meet . . . and I won’t spoil the story for
you.

At the start of this film, we learn
that Sajaan’s retirement is imminent, within a month.Shaikh (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) is his eager
replacement, a man whose integrity is questionable, yet who operates in the
world with the confidence of one who calls his own shots.Batras uses this character deftly. Through
Sajaan’s interactions with the smarmy, wide-smiled Shaikh, we get to observe
his transformation.The frozen man thaws
and over time becomes generous, kind, even protective.We like the potential of this new Saajan and
watch him, wearing a grin as resplendent as Shaikh’s.

How strange that the bustle of Mumbai
could reveal such a quiet, slow gem of a film.This may be one of India’s best.

As of this writing, The Lunchbox hasn’t opened in the U.S.,
save for brilliant film festival appearances.Originally it was primed to be India’s 2013 contender for the Best
Foreign Language Film Oscar.Unfortunately the Indian powers that be selected another.Too bad.This film deserves attention and awards aplenty!

Written and Directed by Ritesh Batras – India (2013)Reviewed by Suz on 1/13/2014

Friday, January 10, 2014

Would you mind very much if your
reviewer put down his mask of objectivity just this once? His pretension to
objectivity is only a formality anyway. Even scientists can't separate their
personal biases from their quest for truth; how much less can a critic who must
evaluate a man-made work by the effect it has on his sensibilities? The story
of Green Mansions was read by your reviewer in his early youth, and the mystery
and romance of it, of Rima, and the haunting South American forest never died
from his memory. Are the impressions in our imaginative youth tucked away in
metal envelopes, like the first cut curls of a child, and kept sealed through
the whole of our adult lives? Or could something come along, some chance
occurrence, to unseal it for us and give us a glimpse of those experiences in
our lives when everything seemed possible?

There was a hope that the film of
this beautiful story would stir up again those same feelings your reviewer had
when he read the book as a boy. But it was not a convincing hope because the
adult mind, deadened with sophistication, knew how impossible it would be for
the film makers to create an experience equal to any boy's imagination.

A half century ago W. H. Hudson
wrote memorably about a young man who fled from a political upheaval in Caracas
to the impenetrable interior in the south. He went there in search of gold with
the hope that he might eventually return and avenge the murder of his father
who was a wealthy government official. What he found was not gold. He found a
fierce tribe of savages whom he could not trust. And he found a jungle
sanctuary in which there lived a beautiful girl called Rima, and her
"grandfather" who brought her up in this isolation.

The girl was out of a dream. She had
incorporated this paradise into herself and was as simple and gentle as the
dazzling tropical birds around her. The young man and Rima fall in love and
their love changes his mind about gold and revenge. It fills Rima with a sense
of wonderment, and with suffering. The old man becomes miserable from the fear
of losing his Rima to love. These three, so remote from civilization, cannot
escape its grip, but it is even truer to say they cannot escape the woes of
conflicting human needs. No, the young man did not find gold; he found a human
treasure, and what theme could be more gratifying than this?

The film-makers were very conscious
of the appeal and depth of Hudson's idea. And more than anything, they were
aware that the setting and mood of the story had to be duplicated exactly as
the author created it if they were to succeed at all. It had to have a
mysterious and haunting simplicity. The actors had to reflect in their words
and motions the feeling of dreamlike unreality.

Audrey Hepburn as Rima looked and
was capable of acting the part, and she did the best that was possible with the
lines and direction given her. Anthony Perkins as the young man seemed too
young and too American for his role. Lee J. Cobb as the grandfather can and
does, when the situation lets him, act with power, but his role was limiting.

The picture fails. The makers tried
too hard. They created a perfection. The forest was perfect, the savages were
perfect, Miss Hepburn was perfect. It is the clean, gleaming, antiseptic
perfection of so many Hollywood productions. If only the makers had relaxed a
little and left more to our imagination, and left out a slew of silly
over-dramatization, they may even have made something that was not only
romantic but also human. They may even have come close to bringing out the boy
again in your reviewer's stultified imagination.

HUGH

Born and raised in Worcester, Mass. Hugh was a Seabee in the South Pacific during WW II. He graduated from the University of Chicago. After a series of unusual jobs, he became CEO of his own company, making coloring materials for the plastics industry. After 20 years, he sold his business to write full time. (His published writings can be seen via the links at the bottom of this page.) His essays on business management have appeared in the Wall Street Journal. He is currently enjoying life in Maine with his artist wife.

SUZ

Born in Massachusetts, Suz has made her home on the east coast and the Rocky Mountain region of the U.S. She completed her collection of degrees with a doctorate in counseling psychology, has had a private practice for decades, and has been a professor of counseling. Suz is a regular at the Telluride Film Festival, and studies screenwriting. An avid world traveler, ever curious about the human condition and differences amongst cultures, she is drawn to independent and non-American films. She and her husband currently reside in southwestern France.